Always here, not always noticed

December 12, 2012 6:59 AM

It's currently the UK disability history month. There are all sorts of things happening.

English Heritage has also produced a section on its website about buildings and disability. This covers leper chapels built in the 1100s, to to the asylums of the 1900s to the paralympics.

posted by Gilgongo (2 comments total)

The EH site is informative, but an overview from too great a height to be relevant to anyone on the ground. They say under Direct Action:
The new social model was concerned with people's rights as members of society. The question of access was critical. Disabled people needed adaptations made to their environments if they were to be properly included. Separate facilities were built at first, but soon architects and planners took on the idea of 'universal design'. They created buildings and landscapes which every person could use every part of.

Not that it's EH's role to be advocating for disability rights, but still, the past tense in that quote is given the lie by ongoing cases such as : A judge has ruled for the first time that a bank was breaking disability discrimination laws by not providing wheelchair access at one branch, even though it had made adjustments to its other premises in the same city.

It was also recently the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities, “the world’s largest minority”. But I don't think these worthy efforts have much hope of gaining much profile or traction.
posted by wilko at 4:23 PM on December 12, 2012

Disability history month - Not always noticed even by people who a) work for one of the country's largest disability organisations and b) have an active interest in heritage (that would be me, by the way).

Thanks for posting this. I will be perusing the links!
posted by Helga-woo at 4:24 PM on December 15, 2012